Orchids
by Velveteenrabbit
Summary: A short series of oneshots on character thoughts on Ran/Aya. Spoils for end of Gluhen, CD dramas, Side B. Please R&R. Ch 6: He waits for the swish of a blade's keen edge, curving through the air.
1. 1st petal: Snowing Christmas

Snowing Christmas

The blonde knight watches his sister, just as she stares at the window, watching the snowfall with healed eyes. In the back of his mind, he is aware of the clock ticking away, a countdown to that new, "special" day of the year. The uneaten cake sits on the table, four plates set out, the frosting as white as the crystals gently falling outside. His sister waits for the sound of the doorbell that he knows isn't coming.

"He would cry if he heard you say that," he had said to Takatori Mamoru, but wonders if it was true. From the punk-like teen Rook, Ran had changed into an angry, brusque person, casting aside his old identity the way a snake (he's not a butterfly, that implies fragility) casts aside its skin, throwing out even his name.

Then, as time dissolves ice to water, the angry persona "Aya" had been smoothed away to form a calmer, sadder personality, like shards of glass soothed by the tide. Though "Aya" had gained what he had sought, it was impossible to back out, to return to the normal, peaceful lifestyle. He _had_ to keep killing, a fate that Yuushi was glad he had been spared from, until he, in the end, had died.

Yuushi wonders exactly which of the personalities "Aya" had developed was really him, then wonders if it even matters. In the end, that bastard had broken his promise, dying before ever joining his sister to see the snowy Christmas Eve together. Yuushi joins his sister at the window, and the thoughts fall as placidly as the snow.

In a different country, far away, snow makes its graceful descent from the heavens, casting white snow on red hair, and red blood on white snow.

AN: Ack, it's so bad . Ah well. The promise refers to the conversation Yuushi and Aya had with Rex and Queen, and Aya promised to come spend Christmas with Yuushi's little sister (who was getting operated on to restore her sight). In that, they mentioned how nice it'd be to have a snowy Christmas. I made Yuushi not know that Aya's alive in New York, and currently bleeding to death after a stab wound.


	2. 2nd petal: Red Roses

Red Rose

Disclaimer: (oops, forgot to make it last chappie.) I'll only say this once. NOTHING belongs to me.

WARNING, MAJOR SPOILAGE FOR GLUHEN AND WEISS SIDE B!!!!!.

He's almost happy. He lives a normal (for an amnesiac) life, happily married. He has a well-paying job. He's married to a wonderful woman. Despite all that, something (his memories, duh) seems to be missing, something's wrong.

He doesn't have a watch, but often glances at his wrist for the time. He whips around when a flash of red enters his vision, searching, only to be disappointed when its not- who? What was he searching for?

He has dreams at night, some happy, some sad, some angry. Many are filled with the stench of death, wire, steel, and red, only to be forgotten, fleeting dreams that disappeared like shadows in the presence of light.

The only link to his past, a katana he was found clutching (or so he was told), had been given to the brunette that had stopped by his house one day, months ago now. He asked to reclaim it, and though something inside him said that it wasn't _his_ sword, it belonged to ---, he gives it away, because the boy doesn't _seem_ like he's lying, and somehow he knows the real owner of the sword needs it.

It's the first anniversary of his and Asuka's wedding, and he finds himself standing in front of a Fujimiya Aya-san, (soon to be Asano Aya) watching as she arranges a bouquet of red roses. She seems off, her hands are too small, compared to callused hands from _work_, her hair is the wrong color, and her demeanor, sunny, not icy, is completely wrong. Somehow, she still seems familiar, a nostalgic name sitting in a familiar flower shop. Idly, he wonders whether the lower level of the shop still has its large TV and the sofa.

He pays for the flowers, picks up his wife, and takes her out to dinner. She goes to sleep first, and misses the wrapped present, sender unknown, sitting on the table, addressed to him. He opens it, and discovers a new watch inside, one that feels wrong, a different kind of heavy, with cold metal caressing his wrist instead of a familiar, warm leather, on his wrist.

He sleeps, and his dreams that night are filled with betrayal, pain, and three shades of red, one a silky color, the other two liquids, though one smells sweet and seductive, the aroma of wine, in contrast to the coppery scent of blood. He wakes early, loosing the dream the way water rolls off an umbrella, and it joins its peers in a large pool of forgotten dreams. He glances at his sleeping wife, and knows that this was all he had ever wanted.

Still, sometimes, a flash of silky red strands appear in his mind, and he wonders if it was worth it.

AN: for those of you who don't know, Yohji's name after the memory loss of Gluhen is Itou Ryou. He's married to the pretty little nurse (Asuka) who rescued him. As for the sword, Ken reclaimed it at the beginning of Side B. The new watch was created by your's truly (it's up to you who sent it to him) Ugh, this was hard to write… Next up is…either Omi, Ken, or Yuki, I guess. R&R!


	3. 3rd petal: Roses by the Sea

Red Rose, Blue Rose, by the Sea

She gets ready to close the shop, sweeping away trampled petals that, when caught by a gust of wind, are blown away, spinning helplessly at the mercy of the relentless winds, a feeling she knows all too well.

So many years had passed since she had woken, a princess in a fairytale, watching the sun breaking through the darkness of night, reflecting on the crashing waves that pounded away at the cliff. The dawn of her new life, as her old memories were washed away, blending to form new ones. She has not seen her brother in a few years, but she knows he's alive somewhere, he has to be, and even though she doesn't know what he looks like now (does he still look the same as he did on the night of the festival, she wonders) and can barely recall the sound of his voice, distorted by the phone, she knows he is still alive. Years have passed, and she knows now, year's after his final phone call to her, that she will never again lay her eyes on her beloved brother in this lifetime.

As children, they had protected each other the best they could, holding each other as they blossomed into teenagers. While she had slept, a plant in winter hibernation, blood had stained the other's purity, red, red like his hair, like a heart, pumping out the last ruby drop of blood. Her petals are tainted with sorrow, crying where the other could not. Despite all the years, she believes that they are still the same as they were those lifetimes ago, still the same.

She remembers packing a bouquet of roses to a tall blonde (a foreigner, maybe?) as he eyes her for a moment, then glances at his wrist. (strange, she thinks, as he has no watch) He pays, glancing around at the shop, thanks her, and leaves. She wonders why he seems a little bit familiar.

Her wedding was a small one, one that none of her family attended. (they are all, with the exception of herself and one other of course, dead) She wasn't too sad though, and was not too disappointed at the fact that no one could give away the bride. After all, her brother was busy, and she was just glad that he was still alive somewhere.

Life moved on, people coming and leaving her life like the push and pull of the ocean's tides. Some leave forever, others return. Now, a lone tear runs down her cheek, her trembling hands on the swell of her growing stomach. On the table rests her long lost pair of custom-made earrings, complete with a bittersweet, short note. A sad smile rises.

"Are you happy with your life now?" the words echo faintly, she can't hear him much anymore, and, once again, she nods and says yes.

The redhead watches the blonde remove a letter from the leg of the owl. "Do you have anyone you want to send something to?" the blonde asks. A childish face with blue hair is recalled, despite the negative response that falls from his lips.

AN: I'm sorry, I lied. I said this would be out at like… um, Friday right? LIAR, INSERT BLURB OF EXCUSES HERE ABOUT DAILY LIFE AND TESTS AND ETC Oooh, I also said I'd do Ken or Omi next, huh… Aya-chan (that's who it was, for those oblivious people out there) just came out earlier, but she was kind of hard to write. I'm not really sure if she got her earrings back after Weiss, but I'm guessing no, so I returned them to her… Oh, I also said that she gets married too, complete with baby, and doesn't meet Aya/Ran ever again. Geh, I cheated, this wasn't that much about Aya/Ran. Well anyways, the last scene is from one of the last chappies of Weiss Side B


	4. 4th petal: Wilted Gentian

Wilted Gentian

Wilted Gentian

He suffocates. With every mission, every kill, he spirals further and further down, into the depths of insanity.

He recalls, quite vividly, Aya's heated clash with his former mentor, Shion, desensitized to death, with his morals crushed by the weight of every bloody cross he carried. Dimly, he sometimes wonders if he's like that, if he'll go insane and force Aya to kill him too.

Aya. When had the stoic redhead become like family? When was it that the entire Weiss family became more like a family than an elite assassination squad? Sometimes, he wishes they hadn't. It would have hurt less, so much less, that way when Omi, like the cuckoo chick usurping another's nest, had become "Persia" and, like the cuckoo chicks murdering of its nest mates, had disbanded Weiss. That was when things began to spiral, twirling madly out of his control. Aya had left the country, and Yohji had fallen too, but into a spiral of women and drugs instead of the half-crazed path of a common thug that he had set out onto.

Suddenly, Aya was back from his assassinations in other countries, Weiss was functional again, and he could breath, and everything was alright, the purpose in his life had been restored, the rock beneath his feet. Or at least, that's the way it should have been.

Somehow, it was still off, and he was still lost, even when they were sent to Kou Academy. Aya was a teacher (something that he couldn't quite imagine), Yohji still seemed off somehow, Omi was Mamoru who was Persia, and he was empty. He killed, and, no matter how hard he had tried, he couldn't have filled in the hole in him with the chunk that he had just carved out of his victims. He kept falling, deeper, as if he was falling into ocean, so deep he couldn't even see the watery light anymore.

In the end, Aya stabs through him to kill that monster (that human) and Yohji is left with Aya's precious katana, and, like the school, the crumbling house of his friends, called "family," comes apart, brick by broken brick, and, like how poor Yohji must have felt, he couldn't avoid the fallout.

Aya disappears for a day, and when he comes back, he's all dusty, his hands are bleeding, and Ken can't help but to feel hopeful because that means that Yohji must be alive, but Aya's dead eyes tell another story.

Everything kept crumbling, and he kept sinking, falling, and desperately trying to stop himself. Aya asked him to drive him to the airport, and he knew that that would be the last time Aya would ever be in Japan, that this time, he'd leave for good. He called out, but the redhead didn't turn around.

Finally, he hits the bottom, during his self-imposed jailing, after requesting Mamoru to send him there. He's at the bottom, and somehow feels better, knowing that the entire jail is obviously filled with others who had hit rock bottom, so he just stayed there. The life, purpose, he had had was gone, and he was desperately and hopelessly confused.

It's the message from God, he thinks, that the ball he had chased after for the earlier years of his life, whacked him while he was just sitting there. The proverbial light bulb switches itself on, and he smiles again. He started working to climb out of the deep hole, the grave, that he had dug for himself.

He sees Aya, tired and dirty, at the mock battle with KR, and the fleeting, surprised look that flits across his face is priceless. Everything that he'd been holding inside him, devotion, anger, comes out while trapped in Chloe's thorn cage. His tirade ends, and he winces, expecting an infamous, icy glare, but receives a huff and the unexpected comment. They spin to face Chloe.

In the wreckage of a burned building, his eyes open to see grey ash, blue sky, and sits up. He hurts all over, but forces himself to get up and look for Aya, because he just _has_ to be alright. He decides then that wherever Aya goes, he will follow and, even though he knows he'll fall often, it's okay. Aya helps him up again.

AN: Are the chapters getting longer? looks Crud. Well anyways.. This was my longest time between updates yet, and I blame it on the fact that I procrastinate (as I'm doing now) and life kicked (and is kicking) my ass. Well anyways, Ken was hard to write, I never fully got his character down. As for the last paragraph, there might be some inaccuracies with the actual Side B manga, but hey, my Japanese sucks.

Gentian is Ken's flower btw. Dunno what it means, since I haven't been able to find a flower meaning book --

Oh, random notice. I decided that amnesiac!Yohji and Yohji are different enough to write different chapters on. I apologize for the late update. R&R!


	5. 5th petal: Catteleya

He couldn't let go

He couldn't let go. But thinking back, he'd never been particularly good at letting go, had he? After all, how many years had he been haunted by Asuka's ghost? He had tried to let go, tried to convince himself that Neu was Asuka, tried to lose bury her face among those of the countless other women's faces, tried to forget through drugs, to erase her existence for the hope of a new life. Every single time he'd been stopped by the ice queen of Weiss. (Though admittedly, the Neu thing would never have worked out anyways)

Aya, God, the first time he'd met him, his "unsociable icy prick" sensors had been going nuts. Standoffish, hostile, a face set in stone, and a look that constantly belittled him, even as he was wrapped tightly in his wires.

Of course, over time he had learned (the hard way) how to read the glares. There was the "Die" glare, reserved for Taketori, the "get the hell out" glare for fangirls, and the common, everyday glare. True, he glared at everyone, but he developed a multitude of glares. The "you broke the vase again?!" glare for Ken, the "too loud and cheerful" glare for Omi, and well, Yohji had the most. He had the "slacker" glare (received everytime he ditched work or skipped a mission) the disgusted glare for each time he came home in the morning smelling like perfume and beer. Those were irritating, but fun to provoke.

Really though, the glares he loved to provoke snapped him back into reality, and no matter how close he had come to replacing her face with another's, no matter how much blood he had hid her under, her pale face and dead eyes stared accusingly at him, every night, condemning him.

After the Weiss breakup, he had found release in women and drugs. Warm bodies eased the numbness. Countless nameless faces made her just another face in the crowd. If he still saw her, it was obviously just another hallucination induced by drugs, easily dismissed. So when Aya had come, he had passed it as another hallucination, another fanciful daydream. (After all, Aya wore that horrid shade of orange, not white) It wasn't until the familiar glare, a disgusted one, had appeared that Yohji realized that that was real, and dragged himself out of his dark, empty drug induced world and followed the light of companionship like a moth drawn to flame, only to enter an equally confusing, dark, bloody world.

It was frustrating still how, after the reforming of Weiss, everything had still been like a shattered plate that a child had tried to fix, hopelessly broken with fragile glue holding the shards together. The wounds in their hearts had grown too deep to just vanish, had become horribly infected, and they had festered, signs of decay all too obvious.

Ken had spiraled into darkness, toeing the line between justice and insanity, and Aya had hidden his pain in a smooth, cold façade, hiding emotions the way snow hid the fragile ice over frigid waters, and found himself missing the heated glares and had searched for any emotion to flit through the redhead's face.

He had run, trying to escape reality and had found a way out, the drugged wine _she_ had offered, a sweet, seductive promise of oblivion.

The thin wire had wrapped snugly around alabaster skin, a morbid necklace fitting for an assassin. Aya turned calmly, no sign of the anger and passion he had once displayed. Their eyes had locked, and a fleeting expression of betrayal had surfaced, to be ruthlessly buried in a heartbeat by stoic apathy.

Their deadly dance was fast-paced, wire wrapping intimately around cold steel, neither stopping despite any bonds they might have formed. The gruesome waltz had ended abruptly, the music of steel wire on steel concluding with a bang as bombs went off, and he had stopped.

The building is collapsing now, and he's all alone, cradling the cold, bloodstained sword that Aya had tossed him. The precious sword that shows the undeserved trust and forgiveness Aya had shown him, and the unspoken promise that Aya will come back. (if only to reclaim the sword)

He's dimly aware (his mind is drifting, he can't quite piece things together well anymore) that the pressure he's under is alleviated slightly by the computers' protective shelter above him. He dimly glances light, and wonders absurdly if this is the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel."

His eyes blink, and his had tightens as a hand attempts to pry his fist off the sword. His eyes close, and he drifts into the oblivion that he would have killed for just hours ago.

The figure glares at the prone blonde's death grip, and sighs. To be honest, he shouldn't have expected anything different. He had never been able to let go, had he?

A/N: Ew. Just, really ew. If it wasn't for the promise that I made to amethyst that I would update soon, I'd really like to go and rip this monstrosity to shreds. Yohji is so hard to write . Anyways, even though there's only a few chapters left in Orchids, it won't be updated for a while, as I have been dragged into the fandoms of Persona and Crisis Core. (that and the fact that my traitorous mind has constructed a mental mindblock between my hands and my brain. I think of ideas, just can't seem to write them down on paper.)

Oh, just a random note. Cattleya is Yohji's flower. Like Yohji, it's a showy flower (it should also be noted that a Cattleya is a species of orchids snickers. Oh, can anyone recommend me the title of a flower language book?


	6. 6th petal: Freesia

Time stops, each second drawing itself out, a stretched thread against the fabric of the universe

**Freesia**

Time stops, each second drawing itself out, a stretched thread against the fabric of the universe. Days pass, but nothing changes. Another meeting, a job well done, wrapped up neatly like a present with a fake smile as the picturesque ribbon. Night falls, another mission, another death. He sits, his back to the light, darkness straining his eyes.

Years pass, and fade away. The dartgun is replaced by a pen, his computer by stacks of paperwork, and every word he writes, every line and mark, shines crimson.

Bastard son, fake Weiss, puppet Persia. Tsukiyono Omi, Bombay, Takatori Mamoru. Memories of his happiest times are faded, partially covered by his life now. The picture on his table lies covered in dust. He watches international news, keeps in touch with the other "dark beast" hunting organizations, keeping tabs on his own hunters, replacing them when necessary. How much has changed; how very few things were different.

Sometimes, he wakes up, drenched with blood, ears ringing with screams.

Some days, he wakes up crying, eyes blurred with tears unshed, the wavy unclear forms scattered around him, drenched in blood and guilt.

More often now, he wakes, on a mountain of prostrate corpses, and feels nothing. The Takatori family grows stronger, all opponents disappear. On these days, he waits for his secretary to tell him a visitor has come, waits for the telltale creak of the floorboards at night.

Weiss members are once again switched, the former Weiss disposed of. He awakens to the silent sound of a breath, the swish of metal through air and closes his eyes. When they open, there is naught but silence, and the lonely, comforting velvet curtain of dark, embracing him once again.

The news' front page broadly screams of a castle burnt to ashes, tired eyes close, a small curve graces the lips.

A new member of Weiss is added, another "dark beast" is slain, and Takatori Mamoru waits for the absent swish of a blade's keen edge, curving through the air.

_--_

_"I wonder why? Probably it's because you'd kill me, Aya-kun. If Tsukiyono Omi disappears from within me, if Weiß becomes something that doesn't protect the innocent, Aya-kun, you'd kill me."_

_--_

"_I see…I…don't hate you nor do I have grudge against you_

A/N: SORRY! I'm so sorry to you, the few people (coughAmethyst cough) that still read this fic . I didn't mean to wait for like what, five months? My rebellious muse has decided to stonewall Weiss Kreuz from my brain, and even though I've been working on it… still have a writer's block. Anyways, I wrote the first half of this chappie like 4 months ago, and took a 4 month break, so this chapter is so blocky and well, you know… ooc for Omi? Well for those of you who haven't read the Drama CD's and Side B, the 1st quote is when Weiss is being put back together, before Gluhen, and the 2nd quote from Side B, when Aya is about to leave Japan for good. Oh, Aya is so nice, right before he left he asked if Omi was happy.

Well anyways, on to explaining to fic… Freesia is obviously Omi/Mamoru's flower. The fact that I used the name Mamoru instead of Omi is intentional, yes. At the end of Gluhen, it mentioned that Omi had been swallowed by his fate as a "Takatori," but it still seems that Mamoru really wants to be with his friends. In Side B, it is mentioned that Mamoru still keeps tabs on Aya, despite not keeping in contact. I didn't feel like mentioning Ouka btw, and I purposely left some parts ambiguous, since I never really "got" Omi. Well anyways, it also mentioned in the Drama CD's that when Omi was undergoing training as a child, Persia forced him to kill his beloved dog as well, sort of a "hardening" experience.

FYI, I thought the Freesia matched Mamoru perfectly, since it's often used as ornamental flowers, and Mamoru in Gluhen kind of screams "Takatori figurehead." They have a pleasing scent, and come in many different colors.

Anyways (wow, A/N is LONG) Review please, constructive criticism welcomed. Don't expect the next chapter for a while, since I still haven't gotten my Side B translations .


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